Are Mormons Christian?

I have dozens and dozens of Mormon relatives. I just had a family reunion with them in December. I love them. They are moral people. Very much good people. I love them. They consider me a Christian. They so badly want me to consider them Christians.

It's so heartbreaking to explain that when you think about it, you look at our doctrines and compare them to yours, they don't match in the most significant places. The doctrine of God is different. The doctrine of Jesus is different. The doctrine of salvation is different.

In all my debates and discussions with Mormons, it's really come down to one thing. That's the focus of authority, the center of authority. For Christians, for evangelicals we go to the Bible alone. It's sola scriptura to only the scripture. The Mormons have not only the Bible. They have three other books: the book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Plus, they have people, apostles, elders who are still giving revelations.

If there's a tier of authority, they go with their leaders. Then they're holy books and then the Bible. There's any kind of disjunction or maybe seeming contradiction and we would say, no, no, no. Go just to the Bible. That's the fundamental bottom line difference because when you try to debate something or discuss something, that's the impasse.

We'll say, the Bible says this. They quote their other items. Then they quote their leaders. If you can't get beyond the revelation issue, you can't really move forward. They believe Jesus Christ is a God. We believe he is God, no qualification. They reject the trinity at protestants understand the trinity. They view Jesus not as eternally existing as a second person of the God head. He is much lower than we would view him. We view God very high. They view God the Father very high. We view Jesus just as high. They do not.

That right there is a fundamental of the Christian faith. Jesus is God himself who existed forever and then was incarnated in history and is exalt able with the father now. Significant difference there.